Kiziba Refugees' Lives Exhibited and Dignified

30th August 2011

Monday morning we spent 4 1/2 hours trying to affix 50 photographs to the Youth Hall's walls using 3 types of medical-issue bandage tape. We also had two pairs of dull scissors, 3 students, and 1 UNCHR employee to help. Two other students rearranged the long, heavy wooden benches to create aisles allowing exhibition attendees to traverse the huge space. Outside it was grey with intermittent showers. Inside, we were still without power. All day the exhibition hall oscillated between dark and very dark. At the exhibition's peak, the hall was so dark, even with curtains fully opened, one could barely see the photographs. There was 15 minutes, though, when there was enough light to appreciate the photographs on display, so I remain thankful. As for the tape, it held and it didn't. I spent a lot of time walking around the room either straightening or re-affixing the photographs to the pocked, dusty walls.

I have recently learned a helpful acronym: TIA--'This Is Africa'. Indeed it was on Monday, but no one seemed to mind the falling photographs as nearly 100 people attended Kiziba Refugee Camp's first-ever art/photography exhibition. If I am honest though, many people spent more time sitting in the center benches than actually looking at the photographs. But, I suppose, that does not matter either.

What matters most is that we had a very organized exhibition, complete with brief speeches from Kiziba Camp's head doctor for Africa Humanitarian Action(AHA) as well as a representative from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees(UNHCR). As I met students' relatives (yes, Gafishi Daniel's mother made it, as did Shabizi Olivier's older brother, Nzeyimana Christian's younger brother and Carine Asha's father), I was deeply appreciative that the camp was experiencing its first visual art exhibition, and that I was there to witness such an extraordinary community event. The students themselves told me how proud they were to have their photographs on display for such a large audience.

Below are several photographs taken at the event. As you would guess, I've had to lighten them considerably, otherwise, they'd be too dark. As for using flash, it's difficult enough to take pictures in a culture that is sensitive, rightfully so, to having its picture taken--flash would be even more off-putting. As for the 'gallery space' itself, what a perfect place, the wall condition matching the wall condition(s) in some of the photographs. During the actual event, several refugees remarked that this was a wonderful experience for everyone, that they were proud to see their own lives depicted by other refugees. These comments, I confess, confirmed what I'd already observed that afternoon in the storm-lit exhibition hall: encouraging art here at the camp was a necessity, and if AHA and UNHCR want to add to their assistance to the refugees here, they will add 'Art' to the already packed program. I'm sure they will do their best.

AHA, UNHCR, American Refugee Committee (ARC), and The Jesuit Committee(I will verify their true name soon) work in concert to feed, shelter, train in small crop gardening, educate to 4th form, provide potable water and basic health care to the refugees here. This is a phenomenal operation where peace is fragile and crisis possible. That these 4 organizations allowed 10 young adult refugees loose with cameras to capture their own lives is a testament to a shared belief that the refugees themselves have something to say about their own living conditions.

Though many might wonder what place the visual arts have here at the camp, on Monday, we saw the wonders of a Youth Hall transformed into an art gallery. So, there is already a place for the visual arts at Kiziba Refugee Camp. All that's needed here is the encouragement and cultivation of the artists.

We know that the photographs in our own family albums help us hold onto people, places, and events that shaped our lives. These photographs validate our existence within a small family and a larger humanity. These photographs help us form our own identity. Eight of my students do not have a single childhood photograph. They certainly have no family album to refer to in order to help reflect on the significant moments of their lives. Bringing photography to the refugees here at Kiziba Refugee Camp may not only help validate their lives, it may also help dignify it, and uplift it. It may help them celebrate their births, marriages, graduations from 4th form, football matches, their mothers, brothers, boyfriends--all the little and large life-events and people that make life worth living--not just surviving.